About Us

K12IRC.org is a totally free and independent resource, a project of the Bonnie and Marty Tenenbaum Foundation. We receive no corporate or government funding.

We are an entirely-free-to-use resource for the K-12 community, with no payment, registration or e-mail address requirements.

K12IRC.org catalogs over 2,300 web and video resources. Dive in and learn something new. Do a search, check out some suggestions, or scan the Table of Contents.

If you'd like to stay informed, join our quarterly newsletter mailing list.

Our Story

Back in the 1995, the Internet as we know it today was just getting organized. There were only 23,500 web sites on the entire Internet (vs. 1.6 billion sites in 2019). Yahoo's tree index – a collection of static web pages – was the "Google" Internet index of the day.

The National Science Foundation saw a need for an index site like Yahoo, but dedicated specifically to educators, explaining the Internet and indexing and organizing education specific resources.

The Virtual Public Library - Instructional Media Center - vpl-imc.org - was the result of that 1995 NSF initiative.

As with most initiatives, funding eventually ended for the web site. Rather than shutting down this resource, one of the original creators of the site, Dr. Bonnie Tenenbaum, adopted it. The site is now a project of the Bonnie and Marty Tenenbaum Foundation.

Over the years this site has gone thru a number of reorganizations – and a couple of name changes – as it reacts to the changes in the Internet and the needs of it's core audience, the K-12 education community.

Today, rather than trying to be all things to all people, we are focused on highlighting best-of-breed resources, ideas for interdisciplinary learning, and to be a clearinghouse for educator concerns and needs.

We receive no funding from government or corporate funding. This allows us to be an independent voice, indexing the-best-of-the-web for the K-12 education community without restrictions or agenda.

Dr. Bonnie Tenenbaum - Librarian

librarian3@k12irc.org

Dr. Tenenbaum has maintained the library since its inception and continues to curate content and provide support & guidance.

larger image of https://www.lodesys.com/

Lodestone Systems

Lodestone Systems has been involved with the site since 1999 and provides all hosting and coding support.

Chris Daley - Webmaster

chris@k12irc.org

Chris Daley, owner of Lodestone Systems, is the webmaster for the site. He's created all of the programming needed for this site and helps maintain the collection.